Chef-inspired Fast-Casual Yolklore Opens in Crestwood

Three owner-operators, a 38-seat diner on Route 66, breakfast and lunch for under $10… Yolklore sounds like a tough way to earn a buck, but chefs John and Mary Bogacki and Billy Oziransky have it figured out. We recently caught up with Mary and Oziransky, as John worked in the diner.

What was your favorite job?

MB: The one that surprised me most was Black Bear Bakery. It was midsummer; we were lifting 50-pound sacks of flour and baking mass quantities of bread in the biggest oven I’d ever seen. I gained a lot of respect for bread and the people who make it.

BO: I was a bellman at The Sebastian in Vail, where my job was to offer services without any limitations. Talk about unstressful.

Any funny customer stories?

BO: When the Jonas Brothers were at The Sebastian one Easter, kids were desperately trying to find them. We moved them around using the freight elevator.

MB: While at the Four Seasons, we’d get crazy requests, like chocolate loafers with money coming out of them.

Mary, can you talk about the Four Seasons, where you were the executive pastry chef?

MB: It was there that I went from a cook to a chef, was called a chef, and learned that people really do have to be treated differently… “OK, so you I need to yell at, and you I need to hug.” Good managers get that. A lot of chefs don’t. I learned to get that.

What about Strange Donuts, where you were the lead chef?

MB: Pretty much every job I’ve pursued has been strategic, and this one was, too. Coming from a big hotel with limitless resources, I knew that if I wanted to own a small business I better learn how to run one. I learned that there.

What did you accomplish there?

MB: I was brought on to make improvements and make everything from scratch—which happened—and to coordinate a lot of events and collaborations. But it was Corey [Smale] and Jason [Bockman] who pioneered the whole chef collaboration here. The ‘Stranger’ donut program was a different collaboration every week.

What’s the concept behind Yolklore?

MB: We feel we have the perfect balance between classic and innovative. Our biscuits and gravy will be like no other. On the other end, there’s the Nest Egg, a biscuit crust in a ring mold with two perfectly poached sous-vide eggs inside, bacon, cheddar, topped with greens, preserved lemons, and pickled red onion. Nobody’s done that.

What else has nobody done?

MB: We take a ring mold, put fruit compote on the bottom, add maple-sweetened oatmeal and flax seed, then bake all that and top it with Greek yogurt and fresh fruit. It’s almost like an oatmeal casserole. If I told you it was also gluten-free and vegan, you wouldn’t care. About half the menu can be made gluten-free or vegan.

MB: When customers join our coffee club, they get a free mug and bottomless coffee for $1 every time they come in. Considering we buy a special blend from Dubuque Coffee, that’s an incredible deal.

Describe the atmosphere.

MB: Three standard tables, plus a communal table, so at night we can do demo classes with guest chefs or private events, like breakfast for dinner.

BO: We own a closed restaurant at night. We love having that kind of flexibility.

Will you use the existing drive-thru?

BO: Our original concept was going to be a food truck, so we were already thinking about super-quick service—and studies have shown that just having a drive-thru will increase sales by 30 percent.

So you can make money with the concept.

MB: We didn’t get in this for the money—we’re in the wrong industry for that—but we don’t want to just get by; we want to pay it forward to the neighborhood, to charities. We’re in it to improve it.

What items will be made in house?

BO: All of the baked goods, obviously, plus pork sausage and turkey chorizo sausage. There’s a lot of profit in something like biscuits and gravy, especially when you make all the components. We don’t make the bacon, and it’s expensive… But wait till you see our bacon.

Does Yolklore use real service ware or disposable?

BO: Both. We use 9-by-9 containers made from sugarcane byproducts that are disposable and biodegradable.

MB: But we use real utensils. Have you ever tried cutting something with a plastic knife? We just couldn’t go there.

Are wedding cakes part of the program?

MB: Wedding cakes are always so expensive. I wouldn’t want to pay $1,000 for a wedding cake, so I’m prepared to work a little harder and longer so we don’t have to do that.

How can a small place like this survive?

BO: Chef-owners, fast-casual service for speeding up ticket times, a drive-thru to increase volume, and the option to do special events at night. We all have a ton of banquet and catering experience, so that can easily happen, too. Having three of us here is a game-changer; it will keep us sane. I moved back here to be with my family, and I want to be able to do that.

Why choose Crestwood over a more foodie-centric area of town?

MB: There were no breakfast options nearby, the city agreed to renovate the former Crestwood Mall, and people are moving here in droves. We couldn’t wait to sink roots here.

BO: It’s people our age who are moving here, the same people who care about their food and where it comes from.

MB: Yet we tailor what we do to the people we know are going to be here. We see office people during the week, for example, and families on the weekends.

Do you have any long-term goals?

BO: Yolklore is commisariable, if that’s even a word.

MB: We’re smashing a few concepts together and have the room to break any of those out and expand upon them. More Yolklores, cakes, food trucks… We’ll see what takes off.